Walk-In Pantry–Day 3

Phil was originally going to come on Friday, but to save packing all his tools up and moving them to the other job, and then back again, we agreed he should come today instead. He was hoping to have finished the job today, but unfortunately things took a bit longer, mostly because none of the angles inside the space are square! There was a lot of fiddling around to get things to fit, but he’s done a brilliant job, and he hopes to get it all finished by the end of tomorrow morning.

An update on the floor – it turns out that Howden’s haven’t after all changed the design of the laminate panels – they have just expanded a bit over time, making it hard to match them up with the new ones. Sorry Howden’s – we take it all back!!

Here is what it looked like by lunch time. He had fitted the supports for the large shelves at the back, and installed the top one. There’s also an end panel onto which the shelves at the sides will be attached.

The middle one will be a granite slab to keep things nice and cool. We are hoping to get that cut to Phil’s template early next week.

The top shelf will be for things like cereal packets, and baskets of miscellaneous stuff if there isn’t room on the other shelves. The bottom shelf will be used to store my various machines, so that I can clear the worktops a bit. They will be easy to get in and out.

Underneath the bottom shelf we are planning to put the wine rack. At the moment this is a bit too high to go underneath, but if we remove the top layer, it will fit OK. We don’t want to do this straight away, though, because it is going to be used as a kitten climbing frame for a while! Kittens adore climbing on the wine rack.

The state of play at the end of the day. On the left, Phil has started to fit the small shelves. There is a step in the side where the original wall sticks out a bit beyond the side of the oven unit, and you can see this below the shelves he’s already fitted. This has caused more problems than if the thing had been flat from front to back. The large shelves and the side shelves which are level with them, are cut from a single sheet of ply, with the angle cut out to accommodate this bit of wall sticking out.

On this photo, you can also see the end panel he has put in to support the small shelves, butting up against the frame with the door hinges on it. There are more small shelves to go underneath as well. There will also be shelves beyond these ones, attached to the projecting wall, and they will extend out into the space a bit further. Making them flush with the front ones would not have allowed them to be deep enough to put anything on them.

Behind the side panel, he has fitted a lovely lot of small shelves, of varying depths to accommodate bottles of oil, spare spices, etc. etc.

It was very hard to photograph these because I had to get right inside the space and couldn’t hold the camera far enough away to get them all in! To the left of these shelves, you can see my spice rack. Phil moved this a bit further into the space to make enough room for shelves of reasonable depth behind the side panel.

Here is the spice rack, and the end piece which supports the shelves behind the side panel. If you look closely, you can see the screw heads where the shelves are.

This is a general view of the pantry at the end of the day, with the door open:

and with the door closed. I am thrilled with how the side panel looks, made of the spare laminate floor panels. It really adds character and contrast, and it also enables us to have further shelves behind it – no wasted space here!

There is a small gap between the side panel and the wall unit on the right, and there is just enough clearance when opening the door of the pantry, not to knock into this. The door had to be narrow or it would not have opened. I am delighted that the hinges enable it to open beyond 90 degrees, which makes access to this narrow space a lot easier.

A detail shot of the cornice.

We both agreed that the door of the pantry needed the same cornice over it. Phil wasn’t able to source any new pieces of this, but there was just enough from the right-hand side of the oven unit to go to the right-hand edge of the door, and he has attached this to the top frame of the pantry – you can hardly see the join! He has cut the side panel high enough not to leave a gap. It looks fine.

Tomorrow he will complete the fitting of the small shelves, and do any necessary finishing off.

Gary, our neighbour, will be coming round on Saturday morning to paint inside the pantry with white emulsion. I have decided not to have the shelves painted because I like the wood. Gary suggested sealing them with linseed oil and I think this is a very good idea – it will also smell fabulous while it’s being done!

We have also got to have a light installed.

After we’ve got the granite slab fitted, I can start moving all the food back in. In the meantime I shall get everything cleaned up, because there’s a lot of dust about, and I can start moving my recipe books back onto the wall unit on the right of the kitchen, and other stuff that I won’t be needing for a day or two. Not long to go now! I am going to have such fun getting it all how I want.